Should some TFW services transfer to Northern?

[185]

I have some sympathy with the original poster - definitely no anti-Welsh sentiment, but the senior people who managed the ATW franchise TUPEd to KeolisAmey and no doubt, will have TUPEd to the latest WG incarnation.. err.. Ken-rail (sic).

Until major changes are made and those persons removed from exec level, train planning & service delivery / control... we'll still see a spacious, luxurious 150 turn up on the ram-packed Manchester-Cardiff despite many so missed opportunities to swap it out or strengthen it during its 3 hour route. We'll still see trains carrying fresh air, a cow and six goats into Wem at 1am whilst simultaneously TfW gleefully abandon trains after 9.30pm to one of Britain's largest city regions, pop >3m, blaming Covid. And we'll still see a packed 2-car 175 on the North Wales coast, whilst Birmingham has three coupled sets coming off the Cambrian with one person per carriage at the same time.

The guards are generally all submitting quite accurate passenger counts, but it is quite clear the people higher up are taking no notice of their data, merely enforcing this task on staff to keep the ORR happy.

 

[Djgr]

I have some sympathy with the original poster - definitely no anti-Welsh sentiment, but the senior people who managed the ATW franchise TUPEd to KeolisAmey and no doubt, will have TUPEd to the latest WG incarnation.. err.. Ken-rail (sic).

Until major changes are made and those persons removed from exec level, train planning & service delivery / control... we'll still see a spacious, luxurious 150 turn up on the ram-packed Manchester-Cardiff despite many so missed opportunities to swap it out or strengthen it during its 3 hour route. We'll still see trains carrying fresh air, a cow and six goats into Wem at 1am whilst simultaneously TfW gleefully abandon trains after 9.30pm to one of Britain's largest city regions, pop >3m, blaming Covid. And we'll still see a packed 2-car 175 on the North Wales coast, whilst Birmingham has three coupled sets coming off the Cambrian with one person per carriage at the same time.

The guards are generally all submitting quite accurate passenger counts, but it is quite clear the people higher up are taking no notice of their data, merely enforcing this task on staff to keep the ORR happy.

But of course in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king. And although the examples you provide are not encouraging they pale into insignificance compared to Northern's ongoing years of shame.

 

[tbtc]

I don't understand why northern would run the Chester - Crewe service, as they don't have depots at either of the stations & have not services going via that route.pkus they are struggling to run their own franchise.
Talking of ATW they took a lot of criticism over the franchise length, especially from politicians & people with little railway knowledge. They weren't perfect & made plenty of mistakes but looking back they did up & above what the contract stipulated plus invested there own money back into the franchise.
Nobody criticised the DFT or politicians but now they are realising running a franchise is very complicated.

I agree with you re ATW (they were upholding their side of the contract that the Government agreed with them - if that only required a train every three hours on a Sunday on some lines then that's the fault of the people who specified it - it's a franchise that requires a lot of subsidy per passenger mile (along with Northern and most of the former "Provincial" sector - this isn't anything unique to Wales & Borders - so if the Government want the franchisee to go above and beyond the franchise requirements then the Government need to stump up the requisite cash.

For example, if I agreed to take over my local council's bin collections and signed a contract guaranteeing weekly collections then anyone wanting me to do two collections a week during December (when people buy a lot more and therefore throw out a lot more) should take that up with the council not me.

I can cope with nationalisation, I can cope with privatisation - what annoys me is when Governments privatise things and then use that to wipe their hands of any problems, passing the buck to the organisation who are fulfilling their end of the bargain - I think that Arriva were a whipping boy that politicians hid behind (which is mixing my metaphors a bit, I apologise!)

However, my point about a Northern base at Chester was following the OP's suggestion that Northern took over some of the staff that TfW currently have based there - i.e. set up their own depot at Chester - they already run two trains per hour to Manchester so it's a lot of ECS without some kind of base on Deeside. If that happened then it'd make more sense to give the Chester - Crewe service to Northern, since they'd be running (other existing) services at both Chester and Crewe - e.g. you could run some Manchester - Altrincham - Chester - Crewe diagrams if that made staff/unit utilisation better than the current set up where there's not a lot of turnaround time for the stand alone "shuttle".

 

[markymark2000]

My opinion on this is that services in their current state could move however if the Liverpool services does run more into Wales then it would be daft to change it. I think that I have made my opinions on TFW quite clear on this forum and that is that I despise them. I think the routes should be taken off them more out of principal than because it's practical. If there wasn't meddling from the Welsh Government, I would be against this proposal but the WAG has too much influence and it's already being shown the lack of care for passengers on the England side of the border and thus why should they be allowed to have the revenue from a service which is sub standard.

This is where the issue lies though, You are in a no win situation. Northern are already struggling or you have TFW who don't care about the passengers. I think if Northern was split though in some way so it was a bit more local and if Northern didn't have some of the driver issues and if the routes didn't extend into Wales anytime in the future then it would be ok to move the routes.
Certainly a tough one at the moment because of Northerns issues. Once they are overcome though, you only have 1 issue that I forsee and that is the plans to extend the services into Wales.

As for the staffing/depot situation, Chesters sidings are pretty disused on the whole. You could get a few trains in there overnight. Not sure if fuel is needed each night though or what other stuff would be needed but the sidings are there and generally quiet. I'd say there is space as well for staff accomodation to be built. Is it worth it though for the few services? You would be looking at 4 trains per hour from Chester on current normal timetables. Is that enough to warrant a staff depot?


I fully agree that TFW should have the routes taken off them but these aren't the ones which they care about losing and as i've said there are a few issues that need looking at first. I'd happily put forward an argument of taking the Manchester to NWC service off them but with how much Wales millage there is, I can see that being hit with a lot of backlash (instead try to reduce TFWs contractual requirements where they end up running just Chester to Manchester services and push more onto Northern but again, Northerns issues need sorting before anything moves to them.

 

[185]

But of course in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king. And although the examples you provide are not encouraging they pale into insignificance compared to Northern's ongoing years of shame.

But in equal measures, Northern being diabolically managed is no excuse for W&B to go the same way.